Jenni Lee turned on one small lamp, the one with the amber shade that made the room feel like the inside of a gemstone. She was not lonely. She was not sad. She was something more complex, something that tasted faintly of gin and bitters and the salt of old tears. She was, she decided, exactly where she was supposed to be.
It was a revelation.
Jenni Lee was forty-seven, an age she had recently decided was less a number and more a state of delicate negotiation. She stood at her mid-century chrome-and-teak bar cart, a ritual she had perfected over the last three Tuesdays. The cart was her grandmother’s, a relic from a time when ladies wore gloves to lunch and drank cocktails before dinner without apology. On it sat a small crystal mixing glass, a jigger, a bar spoon with a red glass jewel on its end, and three bottles: a dry gin from a small Portland distillery, a blanc vermouth she’d discovered on a trip to Lyon, and a vial of orange bitters. jenni lee afternoon cocktail
“Hey, sweetheart,” she said, when Chloe’s tearful voice came on the line. “Tell me everything.” Jenni Lee turned on one small lamp, the